Best of Miami Portfolios 2001 - Units.muohio.edu

Reflective Letter
The reflective letter, addressed to Miami University writing teachers, sets the tone for the
portfolio, introducing not only the writer but the individual pieces as well. Readers are
not expecting a narrative of your experiences and growth as a writer but, rather, evidence
of the critical reflection used in assembling and producing the portfolio. To that end, most
useful letters explicitly introduce the pieces and explain the purpose and audience for
each piece. Both creative and more traditional letters of introduction are acceptable.
As you begin assembling your portfolio, you might be thinking to yourself, “What will help
my ‘reflective letter’ of introduction become an interesting piece of prose?” The four reflective
letters included in this year’s Best of Miami University’s Portfolios collection will answer this very
smart and important question. What will become clear as you read these letters is the sense that
each author is able to express her ideas through a uniquely engaging, and thus inherently
“interesting,” writing style. While each reflective letter is mechanically flawless with respect to
Standard English spelling, punctuation, grammar and usage rules, the success of these four letters
is equally dependent upon each author’s ability to be somehow “present” in her writing. Kate
Ronald (1999) describes this sort of effective writing style as “writing where ‘somebody’s home,’
as opposed to writing that is technically correct but where there’s ‘nobody home,’ no life, no
voice”(171). Thus, as you revise your reflective letter for inclusion in your portfolio, try to write
in a style that reflects your presence in the text. In other words, try to be “at home” in your writing.
Nicole DiNardo is uniquely “at home” in her letter of reflection, introducing herself and the
contents of her portfolio by fictively creating a city scene in which she describes the reactions of
passers-by to the various themes in her writing. Nicole’s clever use of setting and description
demonstrates the ways in which the genre of letter writing can easily blend with conventions from
other genres, like fiction. Similarly, Theresa Donofrio’s presence manifests in her reflective letter
as she deftly plays with the convention of point of view. Theresa begins her letter in third-person
with a brief scenario of a girl struggling to write at her desk. When she asks, “Who is this girl
awake late at night, fighting with the words?” her answer (and the remainder of her reflective letter)
is written in the first-person point of view. Theresa’s use of rhetorical questions effectively guides
the reader through the specific contents of her portfolio and invites the reader to get to know the
writer behind the words. Megan Malanchuk’s letter of reflection opens with a playful description
of herself as a writer in her favorite “cherry-red-glow-in-the-dark” pajamas. Confessing that she
worries about her perfectionist tendency’s harmful influence on her writing, she artfully employs
the image of her “childish” pajamas to explain how she is able to overcome her fears by
remembering how much fun she has had while writing the selections for her portfolio. In an equally
engaging reflective letter, Sarah Mandlehr graciously describes herself as an authentic individual in
a diverse school of other authentic individuals. Sarah’s careful evaluation of her personal interests
and goals, especially as they are represented in her various pieces of writing, shows a facility with
language and a deeply reflective authorial presence in her letter.
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